Our Story:
A Tale of True Love
Moxy Pooh, my first animal companion, came into my life when I was 20 years old. A little ball of white and faun fluff sat in the palm of my hand and that was it—the universe shifted. I was hooked, a goner, totally crazy about him.
All through my 20s, he was by my side—
an enduring source of unconditional love and acceptance and joy, the one centering presence I could count on. Schools, jobs, partners, friends, homes—typical twenty-something turbulence—all changed with sometimes frightening regularity, but Moxy remained: the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night. Taking care of him gave me purpose and stability. In many ways, we grew up together.
Six weeks before my 30th birthday, when he was just nine years old, Mox was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and the universe shifted again.
I disappeared into my terror. Days and nights were suddenly consumed with adhering to rigid medication schedules; counting his breaths; monitoring his heart rate; sitting through endless doctor exams; and the constant, pervasive question: how am I going to live without him?
The answer came immediately: I didn’t want to.
“To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those of us who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman.”
— Hermione Gingold
His heart was just too big. Literally.
In a desperate bid to save him, I pursued open-heart surgery in Yokohama, Japan—an arduous process that took the better part of a year. It meant working two full-time jobs and several side hustles, a six-month quarantine, sky-high paperwork and bureaucratic hoops, unending research, passing stringent medical tests, and—above all—the weight of waiting. His condition could turn on a dime.
I’d never worked harder for anything in my life. I’d never been so terrified. Trying to buy more time required gambling with my own beating heart—and if it failed, I’d have no one to blame but myself. The stakes couldn’t get any higher.
We made it to Japan.
The surgery was a resounding success. For the first few days, he was on the fast-track to making a full recovery. No more restrictions. No more medicine. He was eating, walking. Giving kisses. My baby was breathing.
And then—suddenly—he took a turn. Day by day, I watched helplessly as he faded, my own will to live fading with him. The night before we were supposed to fly home, Moxy’s heart stopped.
The doctors never could tell me what happened or why. Everything had been in his favor. Instead of a triumphant homecoming with years together given back to us, I returned to Seattle in a wheelchair with Mox’s ashes cradled in my arms.
You see, I died in Japan, too. The me I’d been never came home.
I didn’t know when I first met Moxy that he would come to be some kind of child-friend-teacher hybrid for me, or play such an important role in my life.
How could I? I certainly didn’t plan it. In the aftermath of Japan’s events, I saw how sparse resources were while grieving my little boy, how language itself failed me when trying to describe the depth of our bond and what I was feeling, and how isolating it was when people didn’t understand or couldn’t relate to my truth: that no one, before or since, has loved me like Moxy.
I still don’t know how to account for what pulled me through the darkest periods of grief. My intention at that time was to leave the planet and reunite with Mox—and I came very close to succeeding.
What I do know is sharing our story—mine and Moxy’s—has brought me peace.
It’s brought me to you. And I share everything here as much for myself as for anyone else; I’m still learning. Your relationship with your beloved friend is singular and unique to you, too, but when you and I open up to each other—as kindred spirits—we find that our paths run parallel.
“Even the smallest [being] can change the course of the future."
— Lady Galadriel, Lord of the Rings
